[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 48 (Wednesday, April 20, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H2157]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WEAKENED ETHICS RULES

  (Mr. TIERNEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, in partial response to my colleague's last 
statements, it is The Wall Street Journal that says, it is the odor. It 
is the Rocky Mountain News that says it is hypocrisy. The Christian 
Science Monitor calls it hubris, and the New York Times says it is 
autocratic behavior, and the San Diego Union Tribune simply calls it 
disgraceful.
  It turns out that there are a lot of different ways to describe the 
House Republicans' ethical challenges. When the Republicans took over 
Congress in 1994, they promised to usher in a new era of politics. For 
years they had tried to make the case that Democrats were corrupt, and 
in a new Republican era they promised to clean house and change the 
rules to make Congress more accountable to the people that we 
represent.
  Well, they changed the rules. This year they changed the rules to 
prevent the ethics committee from doing its job, and they tried and 
tried and unfortunately failed to change the rules of their own caucus 
to allow indicted Members to retain their leadership offices.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to reinstate the ethics rules in this House. 
It is time that Republicans join the Democrats in supporting the 
Mollohan resolution, so that people can get a fair hearing, but it is 
done within a body that is operating properly.

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